A study conducted by a Stanford University School of Medicine researcher found that a small group of otolaryngologists have repeatedly testified on behalf of the tobacco industry in cases where dying patients were suing for damages.
Despite well-known evidence, they testified in more than 50 cases that smoking was not the cause of their cancers. The findings published in Laryngoscope.
“I was shocked by the degree to which these physicians were willing to testify, in my opinion in an unscientific way, to deny a dying plaintiff — suffering the aftermath of a lifetime of smoking — of a fair trial,” said Robert Jackler, MD, professor and chair of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, according to MDnewsdaily.
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Jackler spent a year and a half reading through expert-witness depositions and trial testimony that were publicly available. He then looked to see if testimony by experts, specifically six board-certified otolaryngologists who were reportedly paid to testify by R.J. Reynolds, Phillip Morris and Lorillard, was supported by evidence.
“The study found they used scientifically invalid methods to support their testimony,” he said.
The study reports that one physician said he was paid $100,000 to testify in a single case, and one said that her opinion was written by tobacco company lawyers and then approved by her.
The physicians pointed to things like alcohol, diesel fumes, machinery fluid, salted fish, reflux of stomach acid, mouthwash and urban living as potential reasons that could have caused cases of various head and neck cancer, despite their heavy smoking.
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The study said:
“An obvious fallacy of this argument lies in the fact that literally billions of nonsmoking people are exposed regularly to gasoline fumes, use cleaning solvents, eat salted fish or live in urban environments. Were these causative factors for head and neck cancer, with even a minute fraction of the potency of tobacco, the rate of head and neck cancer among nonsmokers would be much greater than what has been observed.”
As Jackler’s research points out, scientific evidence points to the fact that chance that smoking caused these patients’ cancers is really about 50 percent.
Clearly even some doctors, who we generally assume are very trustworthy expert witnesses in cases, can be coerced to throw ethics out the window in return for a generous paycheck.
